The ‘Architecture for Unknown Worlds’ images explore our environmental predicament. Working with references to architectural drawings and landscape, I present convoluted structures that reveal possible architecture for a more naturally unstable world, even though it is unlikely that these structures would be able to survive a storm. I present these painted images as an inquiry with an emphasis on uncertainty as the visual narrative. Key issues in this body of work include how humans will adapt if resources are depleted and no longer sustainable. The implied visual fragility of the imagery is portrayed in delicate blue hues of misty scumbled and poured layers of paint in which I use metaphor to support thematic elements of ‘absence as presence’: will we be present in a future landscape? What are we losing through climate change? Through multiple translucent veils and fine washes of paint, otherworldly environments appear as ghost-like apparitions that suggest the past. Or, perhaps of a future where the fragile and uncertain nature of human habitation is held in the balance. Monochromatic hues create a solitary visual space to suggest an illusion of calm yet uncertain terrain. The abstract skeletal form of an architectural shelter hovers, as a morphing conglomeration of styles and history that floats on a fragile horizon line. In this image a hybrid mutation of the hard-edged modernist aesthetic combines with organic forms to suggest that modern cultures, can no longer offer a sustainable vision.

Image Credits Alex Shaw